Cheating could risk college careers

The dozen or so students believed to be involved in cheating at Corona del Mar High School not only may have broken the law, but may have harmed the school's reputation and put their futures at risk, students and experts said.

And the 28-year-old private tutor from Irvine who authorities say helped the students hack into the school's computer system is nowhere to be found.

The news of the hacking broke just days before the Newport Beach school's football team made state history by winning a CIF state championship game Saturday with a 16-0 record.

It was revealed last week that as many as 12 students had been taken in for questioning regarding an incident involving several computer-hacking devices.

Officials with the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and the Newport Beach Police Department say that the students, with the help of private tutor Timothy Lai, used keyloggers to change grades, view testing materials and access teachers' private information.

The students accessed computers for up to two weeks during an unknown time, which could have been before the current school year, said district spokeswoman Laura Boss.

Lai has been wanted for questioning since Thursday, according to the Newport Beach Police Department.

Many students at Saturday's CIF game refused to comment on the matter. Those who did stood by their classmates implicated in the cheating incident. Several cheerleaders said they weren't allowed to discuss the issue.

“It's disappointing that people would do that,” said Kelsie Delaney, an 11th-grader. “The people who are involved are very smart. They're all in honors classes. They're nice kids.”

The vast majority of students at Corona del Mar High School take Advanced Placement classes and have routinely scored well above average on the California Standardized Tests.

But the school also has publicized cheating incidents, the most recent in 2012, when students purchased tests online. In 2004, seven students were caught hacking into school computers to change grades, officials said at the time.

Students said the pressure to succeed could be part of the motivation behind such actions.

“It's so competitive nowadays,” said junior Skylar Crenshaw at the game on Saturday. “Your GPA has to be so high … a lot of the students involved were in my classes, so I think they felt like they needed something to boost them.”

Junior Rachel Wagschal said she worried about the implicated students' chances of getting into college.

“It just kind of bugs me, the rumors that I'm hearing,” Wagschal said, “that the people involved will be expelled, that they're not going to get into college.”

College admissions experts say it's unlikely that students will get into college if they are involved in a cheating incident. Students must indicate on their college applications if any disciplinary action was taken against them, and schools' secondary reports to colleges will include students' discipline records.

Though only a small number of students are believed to be involved in the scandal, the high school must reassure top-notch schools like the USC that it has taken corrective action, and that cheating is not a systemic problem at the school, said Kirk Brennan, director of undergraduate admissions at USC.

He added that in similar cases, he's seen schools attach a letter to every students' transcript showing colleges what went wrong.

When asked what the school and the district were doing to improve the school's reputation in the eyes of universities, Boss said the district will evaluate what steps need to be taken after the police investigation into the students' involvement is complete.

“At this point, we're in a very early investigation and obviously outreach to colleges is something we will look at based on what the investigation comes up with,” Boss said.

“This is a small group of students, and that should in no way diminish the excellent reputation Corona del Mar has and should not affect other students at the school.”